Custom stem cells.
May 19, 2005 3:59 PM Subscribe
Custom stem cells. South Korea produces a significant gain in stem cell research. Experts have suggested that the new technique may sidestep some of the ethical concerns that have hampered research in the US.
And before I get back to work, I'd like to point out that the conservatives who have hamstrung our own research are a bunch of disingenuous, vile cretins pandering to the uninformed and the religious whack-jobs at the expense of our economy, our research community, and our competitiveness in what will likely be one of the most important fields of the coming century.
I'll even go out on a limb here and argue the current position on stem cells is the single stupidest act by this administration.
posted by iron chef morimoto at 4:15 PM on May 19, 2005
I'll even go out on a limb here and argue the current position on stem cells is the single stupidest act by this administration.
posted by iron chef morimoto at 4:15 PM on May 19, 2005
And not for a lack of competition.
posted by iron chef morimoto at 4:17 PM on May 19, 2005
posted by iron chef morimoto at 4:17 PM on May 19, 2005
At work, only skimmed the article, no mention of a publication describing their conversion of a cell into an embryonic stem cell.
/cynical of science-by-press release
//someone please prove me wrong, though - this would be a fantastic advance
posted by PurplePorpoise at 4:28 PM on May 19, 2005
/cynical of science-by-press release
//someone please prove me wrong, though - this would be a fantastic advance
posted by PurplePorpoise at 4:28 PM on May 19, 2005
Interesting news, but no way it'll "sidestep some of the ethical concerns." According to the article, this technique uses and then kills embryos. Anyone who believes life begins at conception would continue to have ethical concerns about this.
posted by twsf at 4:38 PM on May 19, 2005
posted by twsf at 4:38 PM on May 19, 2005
PurplePorpoise, if you'd read it, you would know that they used donated eggs from donor women (who gave informed consent), removed the woman's DNA, and replaced it with the patient's DNA, making it effectively the patient's own cell. They then (somehow, didn't say how) fertilized the egg and stimulated its growth. Pretty fucking rad, if you ask me.
Stem cell research could very well yield the single greatest breakthrough in medicine since the discovery of antibiotics.
posted by salad spork at 4:42 PM on May 19, 2005
Stem cell research could very well yield the single greatest breakthrough in medicine since the discovery of antibiotics.
posted by salad spork at 4:42 PM on May 19, 2005
Interesting news, but no way it'll "sidestep some of the ethical concerns." According to the article, this technique uses and then kills embryos. Anyone who believes life begins at conception would continue to have ethical concerns about this.
The embryos were not created by sex, but from the patient's own DNA. They are cloned embryos of the patient. So, they have no "right to life" of their own, or so it would seem.
Personally, I think life began somewhere in the 3 to 4 billion years ago range. The question is not when does life begin, but when does an embryo become a human individual. I think the answer lies somewhere after tissues start to differentiate and a brain starts to form. This is much, much further along in development than therapeutic cloning techniques ever get.
Also, I think we need to have a nationwide vocabulary review. We need to learn the difference between an embryo and a fetus. Embryos have hundreds of cells. Fetuses have differentiated tissues and are developing organs. Embryos can be created outside a woman's womb. Fetuses require implantation.
Ok. I'm done now. :)
posted by salad spork at 4:49 PM on May 19, 2005
The embryos were not created by sex, but from the patient's own DNA. They are cloned embryos of the patient. So, they have no "right to life" of their own, or so it would seem.
Personally, I think life began somewhere in the 3 to 4 billion years ago range. The question is not when does life begin, but when does an embryo become a human individual. I think the answer lies somewhere after tissues start to differentiate and a brain starts to form. This is much, much further along in development than therapeutic cloning techniques ever get.
Also, I think we need to have a nationwide vocabulary review. We need to learn the difference between an embryo and a fetus. Embryos have hundreds of cells. Fetuses have differentiated tissues and are developing organs. Embryos can be created outside a woman's womb. Fetuses require implantation.
Ok. I'm done now. :)
posted by salad spork at 4:49 PM on May 19, 2005
Assuming that they used a technique similar to the one used to create Dolly, they didn't fertilize the egg, they treated (specifically demethylated regions of) the DNA to make it appear as the DNA of a fertilized egg. Admittedly, the CSMonitor article uses the phrase "fertilize," but I'm assuming that's incorrect.
posted by iron chef morimoto at 4:54 PM on May 19, 2005
posted by iron chef morimoto at 4:54 PM on May 19, 2005
salad spork writes "The embryos were not created by sex, but from the patient's own DNA. They are cloned embryos of the patient. So, they have no 'right to life' of their own, or so it would seem."
Which of two identical twins has a "right to life" of their own then? They are clones of each other.
But for religious right-to-lifers: since identical twins forms from one egg, splitting, and since you believe life begins at conception, do two twins each have half a soul?
The problem with all these arguments is that they are essentialist attempts to impose digital dichotomies (this is "life", that is not) on what's an unbroken continuum.
Is a blastocyst alive? Of course it is. Is it "human"? Yes, as human as a similar bundle of cells in the liver Doe sit have a consciousness? Of course not.
posted by orthogonality at 4:57 PM on May 19, 2005
Which of two identical twins has a "right to life" of their own then? They are clones of each other.
But for religious right-to-lifers: since identical twins forms from one egg, splitting, and since you believe life begins at conception, do two twins each have half a soul?
The problem with all these arguments is that they are essentialist attempts to impose digital dichotomies (this is "life", that is not) on what's an unbroken continuum.
Is a blastocyst alive? Of course it is. Is it "human"? Yes, as human as a similar bundle of cells in the liver Doe sit have a consciousness? Of course not.
posted by orthogonality at 4:57 PM on May 19, 2005
The idea that scientific research is being held up by the idea that microscopic, undifferentiated blastocytes might have microscopic little baby-souls is unconscionable.
posted by iron chef morimoto at 5:02 PM on May 19, 2005
posted by iron chef morimoto at 5:02 PM on May 19, 2005
The idea that scientific research is being held up by the idea that microscopic, undifferentiated blastocytes might have microscopic little baby-souls is unconscionable.
Well, yes. But you're going to have a hard time changing some minds on that one. We talked about it a little
here.
posted by Specklet at 5:28 PM on May 19, 2005
Well, yes. But you're going to have a hard time changing some minds on that one. We talked about it a little
here.
posted by Specklet at 5:28 PM on May 19, 2005
I'm all for stem cell research -- I hope before the next 20 years or so are over, I'll be able to live virtually forever if I have the cash -- but some of the things Korean researchers are doing seem to me to be patently bad ideas. Pun intended.
The problem arises because we feed herbivores meat byproducts. Solution? Let's genetically engineer them so we can keep doing it! Clever, but not real smart.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:34 PM on May 19, 2005
The problem arises because we feed herbivores meat byproducts. Solution? Let's genetically engineer them so we can keep doing it! Clever, but not real smart.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:34 PM on May 19, 2005
South Korea is obviously full of freedom hating, jesus trashing infidels. They should all be beaten with bibles. That'll teach those pigs.
posted by damnitkage at 6:37 PM on May 19, 2005
posted by damnitkage at 6:37 PM on May 19, 2005
orthogonality..do two twins each have half a soul?
*clap*
posted by peacay at 6:42 PM on May 19, 2005
*clap*
posted by peacay at 6:42 PM on May 19, 2005
salad spork - thanks, but I said 'publication' as in peer-reviewed. Sorry if I made assumptions with my vocab.
The whole getting a donor's DNA to believe that it's undifferentiated embryonic DNA is one of the holy grails of this field. Dolly (not to mention a lot of stillborn/spontaneously aborted cohorts) had symptoms of accelerated aging and other problems because of this. Pleuripotent stem cells can generated/harvested from adult humans, totipotent (truely embryonic) is a wee bit more difficult.
Then again, I guess the 'new' stem cells are the same age as the donor so the regenerated cells wouldn't negatively affect the donor's potential lifespan. I'm just worried about the cells going malignant (because the cell from which the DNA was derived from isn't an embryonic stem cell and will not behave like DNA from an embryonic stem cell because it has cell-specific modifications already) and just how many eggs they have to use to get a single embryonic stem cell line. Eggs, unlike sperm, aren't cheap you know.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 8:00 PM on May 19, 2005
The whole getting a donor's DNA to believe that it's undifferentiated embryonic DNA is one of the holy grails of this field. Dolly (not to mention a lot of stillborn/spontaneously aborted cohorts) had symptoms of accelerated aging and other problems because of this. Pleuripotent stem cells can generated/harvested from adult humans, totipotent (truely embryonic) is a wee bit more difficult.
Then again, I guess the 'new' stem cells are the same age as the donor so the regenerated cells wouldn't negatively affect the donor's potential lifespan. I'm just worried about the cells going malignant (because the cell from which the DNA was derived from isn't an embryonic stem cell and will not behave like DNA from an embryonic stem cell because it has cell-specific modifications already) and just how many eggs they have to use to get a single embryonic stem cell line. Eggs, unlike sperm, aren't cheap you know.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 8:00 PM on May 19, 2005
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the impression that I got from the articles was that the egg doesn't really get fertilized the way we're familiar with. Rather than being inseminated in the conventional sense of sperm+egg=human fetus, they swapped the nucleus from skin cells with the nucleus of the egg, thus bypassing the potential for the fertilized egg to become an embryo. Right? The egg can't grow into a baby with a skin cell nucleus. It just becomes a mass of cells with human DNA. So, it becomes skin+egg=human parts. Is that correct or am I missing something important?
If that is correct, then the "sanctity of human life/life begins at conception" argument doesn't apply to this line of research.
posted by Jon-o at 9:30 PM on May 19, 2005
If that is correct, then the "sanctity of human life/life begins at conception" argument doesn't apply to this line of research.
posted by Jon-o at 9:30 PM on May 19, 2005
Jon-o - tha'ts right. Whether it works or not... (I could electroporate the nucleus of one of your skin cells into an egg from a frog - but it wouldn't necessarily be an embryonic stem cell equivalent)
posted by PurplePorpoise at 7:04 AM on May 20, 2005
posted by PurplePorpoise at 7:04 AM on May 20, 2005
The rights of the American Blastocysts must be defended at all costs.
Even if we have to manufacture them little M16s with which to defend themselves.
Blastocysts will never be adequately protected until every single female has been sufficiently oppressed by a "Good Christian" male!
[/homage to patriotboy]
posted by nofundy at 7:40 AM on May 20, 2005
Even if we have to manufacture them little M16s with which to defend themselves.
Blastocysts will never be adequately protected until every single female has been sufficiently oppressed by a "Good Christian" male!
[/homage to patriotboy]
posted by nofundy at 7:40 AM on May 20, 2005
UK announces they have also cloned an embryo.
And a christian perspective in honour of the Be*ets.
posted by peacay at 9:08 AM on May 20, 2005
And a christian perspective in honour of the Be*ets.
posted by peacay at 9:08 AM on May 20, 2005
I hope Bush's life is saved at some future date from stem cells harvested from a human embryo.
posted by BrotherCaine at 9:29 AM on May 20, 2005
posted by BrotherCaine at 9:29 AM on May 20, 2005
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posted by iron chef morimoto at 4:03 PM on May 19, 2005